Stuck In Thee Garage #247: November 23, 2018

At first thought, the 2000s don't seem that long ago, but when you really consider what was going on 15 years ago, you realize things were very different. MP3s and iPods were all the rage, the Iraq War was underway and people were lining up to see three-hour movies about hobbits. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from 2003 in hour two. The show goes well with a heaping stack of pancakes.

Assemble your crew:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Swervedriver - Drone Lover/Future Ruins
Mudhoney - Paranoid Core/Digital Garbage
Cloud Nothings - The Echo of the World/Last Building Burning
Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers - China Beach/Bought to Rot
Rick Rude - Slow Cooker/Verb for Dreaming
Pile - Scissors/Odds and Ends
Tears Run Rings - Helios Heliadae/Somewhere
Spirit Award - Supreme Truth/Muted Crowd
Walter Lure & the Waldos - Take a Chance on Me/Wacka Lacka Boom a Loom Bam Boo
Exit Group - Subtle Persuasion/Adverse Habitat
Obnox - Find My Way/Bang Messiah
Fucked Up - Tell Me What You See/Dose Your Dreams
Joyce Manor - Friends We Met Online/Million Dollars to Kill Me
Burning House - Peach/Anthropocene
Pill - Power Abuser/Soft Hell
Pedro the Lion - Yellow Bike/Phoenix

Hour 2: 2003
The Postal Service - Such Great Heights/Give Up
The Fiery Furnaces - Asthma Attack/Gallowsbird's Bark
Stephen Malkmus - Dark Wave/Pig Lib
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Coma Girl/Streetcore
The Black Keys - Thickfreakness/Thickfreakness
Drive-By Truckers - Outfit/Decoration Day
Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage!/Fire
Ween - Transdermal Celebration/Quebec
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?/Hearts of Oak
Matthew Sweet - Dead Smile/Kimi Ga Suki Raifu
The Libertines - Don't Look Back Into the Sun/I Get Along
Sloan - Live On/Action Pact
The Wrens - This Boy is Exhausted/The Meadowlands
The Twilight Singers - Fat City (Slight Return)/Blackberry Belle
Mark Lanegan Band - Skeletal History/Here Comes That Slight Chill
TV On the Radio - Satellite/Young Liars

Completely Conspicuous 499: Live/Dead

I'm joined by guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the Grateful Dead's first official live album, Live/Dead. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Recorded at CompCon world HQ
- Live/Dead was released in 1969
- There weren't a lot of live albums released then
- The band did it as a make-good to the label after some poor-selling albums
- Recorded at the Fillmore West
- Songs evolved in live setting
- At the time, it was unusual to play extended jams
- Music fans really focused on albums back in the heyday of vinyl
- The first thing you hear on the album is 23-minute "Dark Star"
- Now for the tuning section
- Phil: Have listened to 250-300 Dead bootlegs
- Bootleg tape trading was huge in the '70s and '80s
- Archive.org, Nugs.net have tons of Dead shows
- On a lot of '70s-era live albums, bands went in and re-recorded songs or parts of songs
- Some bands perfectly recreate their studio sound
- "Death Don't Have No Mercy" is reminiscent of Zeppelin's "Since I've Been Loving You"
- When this album came out, FM radio was in a very experimental place
- Some stations would play album sides or even entire records
- "St. Stephen" is a standout
- Jay: I've been impressed so far
- Phil explains the Dead to his kids
- Seeing a dude doing coke off his dashboard at a Dead show

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #246: November 16, 2018

In tough times, sometimes wishful thinking is all we've got. Hoping for the best can keep you going even when things seem to be at their worst. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about wishes in hour 2 (Jack Nicholson impressions not included).

This playlist will grant you 30 wishes:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Mike Krol - Little Drama/Power Chords
Rick Rude - Doughnation/Verb for Dreaming
Burning House - Mirror Song/Anthropocene
Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers - Reality Bites/Bought to Rot
Stove - Safe Guy/'s Favorite Friend
Girlpool - Lucy's/Single
Pill - Dark Glass/Soft Hell
Ty Segall - Fanny Sketch/Fanny
The Room in the Wood - Mars (Won't Save Us)/Mars
Carl Broemel - Rain Check/Wished Out
Wild Nothing - Partners in Motion/Indigo
Elvis Costello & the Imposters - Mr. & Mrs. Hush/Look Now
Swearin' - Stabilize/Fall Into the Sun
Antarctigo Vespucci - Not Yours/Love in the Time of E-mail
LowRay - Friends and the Fakers/Friends and the Fakers
Daughters - Long Road No Turns/You Won't Get What You Want

Hour 2: Wish
Sonic Youth - Wish Fulfillment/Dirty
Elizabeth Colour Wheel - Wish/Single
Nova Flares - Ghost Only Wishes/Nova Flares
Radiohead - Bullet Proof...I Wish I Was/The Bends
The Twilight Singers - I Wish I Was/Powder Burns
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Wish/Pretty Years
Terence Trent D'Arby - Wishing Well/Introducing the Hardline According to...
Sloan - Wish Upon on a Satellite/12
The Smoking Popes - Wish We Were/This is Only a Test
Future States - Wish You Well/Casual Listener
Red Red Meat - Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)/Bunny Gets Paid 20th Anniversary Reissue
Pearl Jam - Wishlist/Yield
Wilco - Wishful Thinking/A Ghost is Born
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here/Wish You Were Here

Completely Conspicuous 498: Aoxomoxoa

I'm joined by guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the Grateful Dead's third album, Aoxomoxoa. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Recorded at CompCon world HQ
- Aoxomoxoa was released in 1969
- A big year for rock music
- Tons of legendary albums came out: Zeppelin, Who, Beatles, Neil Young, Stooges, MC5, Stones
- First two Dead albums were commercial failures
- Went way over budget in studio, stuck to their guns
- Very experimental sound
- Robert Hunter contributed lyrics to most of the album
- Songs featured eccentric characters, way out lyrics
- Plenty of drugs were part of the process
- The old West, the devil, the rose were recurring themes
- First album ever recorded using 16-track technology
- Band spent $180k on the album
- Jay: A lot to like about this album
- "Dupree's Diamond Blues" sounds like a Kinks song
- "What's Become of the Baby" is 8 minutes of weirdness that should have been left off album
- When bands release unnecessary hits compilations
- There was a definite '60s resurgence in the mid-80s that led to growth in popularity of the Dead at colleges
- And then jam bands really caught on: Phish, Allman Brothers, Blues Traveler, Widespread Panic
- Iconic Dead skull and lightning bolt logo was released in '69
- Phil: Band was very good at mobilizing fanbase
- Dead merch is so unique and well-known
- The confounding popularity of "Africa"
- "China Cat Sunflower" is a Dead classic
- Some songs evolve in concert, some don't get played at all
- Aoxomoxoa sounds like the Dead
- Jay: Jams can be fun, but you don't necessarily want to put them on a record
- We'll listen to more live stuff vs. studio albums going forward
- Next up: Live/Dead

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #245: November 9, 2018

Ah, the go-go '80s. Sure, we had the persistent fear of nuclear annihilation, but everybody seemed to have fun. Maybe that was the cocaine talking. Anyhoo, I played songs from 1983 in hour 2 of Stuck In Thee Garage this week and it was fun. I love it when a plan comes together.

I pity the fool that don't dig this playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Doe - Labour Like I Do/Grow Into It
Colleen Green - Green My Eyes/Casey's Tape - Harmontown Loops
Smokey Brights - Different Windows/Different Windows EP
Goodbye Honolulu - Barbados Slim/More Honey
Spesh - Teflon/Famous World
Smokescreens - Buddy/Used to Yesterday
Slothrust - New Red Pants/The Pact
Stove - Stiff Bones/'s Favorite Friend
Antarctigo Vespucci - Freakin' U Out/Love in the Time of E-mail
Surfbort - White People/Friendship Music
Cloud Nothings - On an Edge/Last Building Burning
Young Jesus - Fourth Zone of Gaits/The Whole Thing is Just There
Low - Poor Sucker/Double Negative
Peel Dream Magazine - Deetjen's/Modern Meta Physic
Guerilla Toss - Jesus Rabbit/Twisted Crystal
Billy Moon - Dingus/Punk Songs
The Dirty Nil - Phone Call/Master Volume
Idles - Great/Joy as an Act of Resistance

Hour 2: 1983
The Replacements - Color Me Impressed/Hootenanny
R.E.M. - Sitting Still/Murmur
X - The New World/More Fun in the New World
Dio - Rainbow in the Dark/Holy Diver
Thin Lizzy - Heart Attack/Thunder and Lightning
Def Leppard - Too Late For Love/Pyromania
David Bowie - Cat People (Putting Out Fire)/Let's Dance
The Fixx - Saved By Zero/Reach the Beach
The Police - Synchronicity I/Synchronicity
The Rolling Stones - Too Much Blood/Undercover
Gang of Four - Is It Love/Hard
Duran Duran - Union of the Snake/Seven and the Ragged Tiger
The Plimsouls - A Million Miles Away/Everywhere at Once
Joe Jackson - Memphis/Mike's Murder soundtrack

Completely Conspicuous 497: Anthem of the Sun

I'm joined by guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the Grateful Dead's second album, 1968's Anthem of the Sun. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Recorded at CompCon world HQ
- Anthem of the Sun was recorded in 1967, released in '68
- Very experimental, similar to Zappa's song splicing in the '70s
- Studio and live performances mixed together
- An early concept album
- Songs would evolve through the years in performance
- Robert Hunter makes his first appearance as a lyricist on this album
- Producer grew frustrated with the band and left during the recording
- The sound of "thick air"
- Triple kazoo attack
- The Dead must have been a shock to fans of bubblegum pop
- Live, the Dead mixed up their shows every night
- This album sounds more jammy, like you would expect a Dead album to sound
- A lot of covers of bluegrass, country, jug bands, blues
- Pearl Jam adopted the Dead practice of releasing official bootlegs of shows
- The Dead used to do more audience banter, but recent incarnations of the group just play with minimal talking
- Anthem of the Sun was the next step in the evolution of the band's sound
- Next up: Aoxomoxoa

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #244: November 2, 2018

Saying hello is one of the most common actions humans partake in on a regular basis. Whether's it's "hello," "hey" or just a simple nod, greetings are essential basic human interaction. Today on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about saying hello in hour 2.

Say hello to my little playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Bob Mould - Sunshine Rock/Sunshine Rock
Cloud Nothings - Leave Him Now/Last Building Burning
Stove - Mosquiter/'s Favorite Friend
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts - Fresh Start/Bad Reputation Official Soundtrack
Surfbort - Selfie/Friendship Music
Doe - Team Spirit/Grow Into It
Goodbye Honolulu - Lorry Can't Love/More Honey
Fucked Up - Mechanical Bull/Dose Your Dreams
Antarctigo Vespucci - The Price is Right Theme Song/Love in the Time of E-mail
Exit Group - Cruel Fog/Adverse Habitat
Young Jesus - Deterritory/The Whole Thing is Just Here
Deer Tick - Hey! Yeah!/Mayonnaise
Elvis Costello & the Imposters - Under Lime/Look Now
Kurt Vile - Rollin With the Flow/Bottle It In
Say Sue Me - Just Joking Around/Where We Were Together

Hour 2: Hello
Cheap Trick - Hello There/In Color
Buffalo Springfield - Mr. Soul/Buffalo Springfield Again
Alice Cooper - Hello Hooray/Billion Dollar Babies
Joe Jackson - Get That Girl/I'm the Man
The White Stripes - Hello Operator/De Stijl
A Sinclair - They Breed and Say Hello/Get Out of the City
Sleater-Kinney - Hey Darling/No Cities to Love
David Bowie - Everyone Says 'Hi'/Heathen
Interpol - Say Hello to the Angels/Turn On the Bright Lights
The Fall - Hey Student/Middle Class Revolt
Sonic Youth - Hey Joni/Daydream Nation
M.A.C.C. - Hey Baby (Land of the New Rising Sun)/Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix
Temple of the Dog -  Say Hello 2 Heaven/Temple of the Dog
Riverboat Gamblers - Hey! Hey! Hey!/Something to Crow About
The Hellacopters - Hey!/Payin' the Dues
Foo Fighters - Hey Johnny Park/The Colour and the Shape